Melody of Mana

As I sat soaking in the blissfully warm water I began to think. This was an optimal place for such things, particularly after weeks spent in the cold and ice. Regardless of how rushed they may have been I had to hand it to Dras and Selene, their construction had been pretty functional. It was simple, sure, but for something made as a side project to stave off boredom it was pretty good. They'd divided the baths into a men's side and a women's side. While I was curious as to what the boys got, we got a large soaking tub with a in and out waterfall. Either was good to sit under, depending on exactly how hot you wanted the falling stream to be.

The tub was a blessing, and as I ran fingers atop the water's surface I contemplated options. There were a few places that I could change things, I just needed to decide if I would or not. I could try to leave the Durin's lands. This first option was easy to accomplish with my current skill-set just as soon as anyone took eyes off me. I could turn invisible and either walk away or wait until we got back to use one of the gates. There'd be little way to track me once I was out, and I could make my way anywhere.

How would that reflect on my family though? Or my friends? I also had to consider that if I did, our esteemed emperor would absolutely send people after me. If I ran I'd be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my days; one didn't let someone who could make gates wander off freely.

There were a few places I could go if I left, eastward would take me to lands he hadn't conquered... yet. If I went back to the elven lands I could probably hang out with Justin for awhile, it would certainly be safe there. The last boat trip across that ocean had been harrowing though, so I wasn't sure if I'd be taking that route.

It wasn't urgent to run either, not yet at least. That didn't mean that I didn't need to prepare though. New weapons, those I needed, and in a bad way. I considered all the things I might do. Poisons were out, I just didn't have enough experience with them. The speed of bard magic also meant that most other forms of direct attack were either a charge up or very slow. Not for the first time did I grit my teeth at that limit. Large energy weapons were out, and the kind of explosive death a priest did was also no good.

I dipped my head underwater in a deep groan, trying to come up with anything. Finally I started to run out of air, the slow buildup began to get to me until I had to surface again. Hold on, hold on, now that was an idea. It was slow, almost insidious, and I had more than enough experience with holding my own breath to try and force the lack of oxygen on others. Was that possible though? I'd need to try it on some really unfortunate mice or something, but I would bet so. If it did, I could slowly take people out, by the time they realized it would probably be too late for most of them. Just had to make it past the resistance mages had.

I also needed to look at ways to perform that were either far quicker, or less noticeable than I had to perform my castings, that was sure. There were however a limited number of ways to perform, you could sing, and dance, and act or... I thought about that for a moment, could I act? That would be a good experiment for later, someone had certainly tried at some point, but if it had worked they'd not written it down. That wasn't odd though, as a lot of techniques were kept secret, or ignored for perceived uselessness.

"You okay?" Selene asked from the other side of the bath.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I responded.

"Right, and I'm thinking of dying my hair purple," she scoffed.

"Purple would look good on you."

"Ha! So spill, what's got you in a mood?" Selene was not to be dissuaded.

I needed to come up with something workable, and on the spot. I frowned and sank a little lower in the water to blow bubbles. To her it might look like I was pouting, but in all honesty I needed time to think.

A lie would be sub-optimal, as lies tended to come back when you least expected it. No, I needed a truth, something that bugged me a bit, but not what I was thinking about. I didn't know if she might spill something to the higher ups either on purpose or by accident.

"I'm worried about the other members of our team. We were quarantined, but we don't know about them. I hope they're alright, but I haven't gotten any word yet. Nobody even sent a letter." I was worried about them, mostly the elf, but it was true enough.

Selene snorted. "Well, perhaps you should try sending one. I've been keeping a few going back and forth between Leah and myself. They're fine, she's busy writing as much as she can on the... goblins I think you called them? Wants to mount another expedition to that island."

That came only as somewhat of a surprise. I knew she'd been interested, but going back there would be incredibly dangerous. Did she even realize how bad things had been the first time around? "Well, she did get excited, but if she tries, she's an idiot."

"At least we can agree on that. Her brother is doing what he can to dissuade her, but the idea of another spellcasting sentient species stuck with her. She's at the very least writing as much about them as she can down for others, island location included," Selene sighed as she finished, looking as frustrated as I felt.

"Don't suppose you've heard about Glen or Ulanion?" I inquired.

"Sadly no on either account. Glen's military though, so he's probably off somewhere killing monsters or beating up the emperor's enemies. Well, more than likely working as a living wall while something tries to kill him, but he's tough. As for the elf... no idea, he's somewhere though for sure. You could ask when we get back."

"I might," I agreed; I'd been planning to anyway.

"Good, find anything neat while out on your little trip? The valley here is nice, but wow is it boring."

"Oh yeah, we found ice, and ice, and more ice, and some ice. There was also a worm monster thing, but it didn't do anything, just popped up and wiggled around for a bit." I couldn't hold back the sarcasm on that one.

"Gross, glad I missed that."

"So," I began. "What do you think we'll be doing when we get back? More testing? Or more portals?"

"Depends, that guy you sent through went back early. My guess is that if he gets a go ahead from whatever priest they send to look him over they'll have us on gates, if not, well... Then we've got a lot of problems, since I've got no clue where any issues in the rune sequences would be."

"I think the chances of failure are... low."

The rest of our bath was rather uneventful. Selene had a few thoughts on activation methods, but they all had their ups and downs. I personally thought it would be best to keep it simple and use a switch, or a pressable rune, much like the ones in the gate room had. In the end we could speculate all we wanted, the real answer would come from what the people in charge wanted the activation to be.

That night we slept in proper beds, sort of, they were raised stone with our bedrolls, but it was warmer than the carriages, and that was something. The shaping and the like also helped a ton, and thought I hated to admit it, I slept better in that stone bed than I had in the last couple weeks.

Pack up was quick. The soldiers wanted to go home, we casters wanted to go home, our higher ups also wanted us home, so everybody was in agreement. The wizards we'd left behind had rigged up a basic door scheme which consisted of big square stones blocking all the entrances to the now abandoned buildings. If anyone decided to set up here again they'd have a good head start on it at least.

The path back to the fortress wasn't what one might call scenic. It wasn't as bad as the blasted wastelands to the far north, but only by a small margin. There were a few boulders here and there, little piles of the things near currently frozen lakes. I think they'd been called moraines or the like back on Earth.

Durin's fortress was near one of these lakes, looming over it like some sort of spartan castle. Ristolian, for all of his many feats, kind of sucked at making his home a beautiful place to look at. That said, it was in a good position at least, the ice sheet reflecting the light in pretty ways on the surrounding land.

Before we even properly arrived I could see a few people moving about on the parapets, our homecoming was well expected. Hopefully someone had made a meal that wasn't either summoned food or rations, cause I could certainly do with something warm.